The opponent. Tampa Bay is 5-1-1, including 1-0-1 on its current five-game road trip. The Lightning won 6-3 at Chicago on Sunday after losing 5-4 in overtime the previous night in Minnesota. The Avs were swept in the two-game season series against Tampa Bay last year, losing 5-2 at Amalie Arena and 6-5 at the Pepsi Center.

League leaders. Entering Tuesday’s games, Avs right winger Mikko Rantanen is tied with Toronto’s Auston Matthews with a league-high 16 points, and Colorado center Nathan MacKinnon is third with 15. MacKinnon and left winger Gabe Landeskog are tied for second with eight goals, trailing Matthews’ 10.

MacKinnon and Rantanen (league-high 12 assists) are on nine-game point streaks, having produced a point in every game. And the Avs’ top line has the league’s top three plus-minus ratings in Landeskog (plus-11), Rantanen (plus-11) and MacKinnon (plus-9).

Semyon Varlamov is 4-0-2 and his .953 save percentage ranks second among goaltenders who have played at least three games. His 1.64 goals-against average is third in the league.

Killing it. The Avs have taken 111 penalty minutes, third-highest behind Winnipeg (154) and Detroit (115). But serving time in the sin bin has not been costly for Colorado, thanks a 90.5 percent penalty kill — third best in the NHL.

The Avs also have had a good power play, with a 27.3 percent success rate (ninth).

Footnotes. Forward Marko Dano, who was claimed off waivers from Winnipeg last week, logged a team-low 9:23 in his Avalanche debut on Monday. Dano played on the fourth line with center Tyson Jost and Gabriel Bourque. Although Jost has been demoted to the fourth line, he still plays on the No. 1 power play. … The Lightning has two full days in Denver before Wednesday’s contest. Tampa Bay’s road trip continues through Las Vegas and Arizona on consecutive nights Friday and Saturday.

Both Alex Kerfoot and Colin Wilson have played every game on the line together for Colorado this season, but Tyson Jost played on the fourth line for four games in addition to being sidelined for four more due to a concussion.

And two nights after roaring past Boston and its high-powered top line, Colorado gave further reason for that cautious optimism, even as the end result was Friday's 3-2 overtime loss at the Pepsi Center to the defending champion Capitals following three periods and 22 seconds of gritty hockey.

Philipp Grubauer gets the start in net on Friday night for the first time since an ugly seven-goal showing in a loss at Vancouver on Nov. 2. Grubauer was 15-10-3 last season with the Capitals, including 0-1-0 in two playoff starts.